


Childhood Dreams

by NightWinds



Category: Actor RPF, DC Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Fluffy, M/M, childhood AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-04-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6489322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightWinds/pseuds/NightWinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry is in third grade when he meets another student who shares his love for superheroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Childhood Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I wanted to write something for the Ben and Henry tag, so here is a childhood au thing. Enjoy!

“Henry, can you please put the toy away? It’s not playtime anymore,” Henry’s third grade teacher, Mrs. Zoden, practically pleaded. “It’s distracting the other students.”

Henry frowned, put his Superman figure back into his bag, and tried to pay attention.

Soon enough, the lesson on how to write cursive was completely out of his mind. He stared straight ahead, looking at his teacher’s feet, making it seem as though he was still paying attention. His mind wandered, surrounding the one dream that drowned his brain in thoughts and hopes.

He wanted to be Superman.

Even at this age, Henry knew that that would never happen. How could it? He didn’t live anywhere close to California and he bet that his family would never allow him to move _that_ far away. 

As his mind filled with red and blue images, he reached behind him and clasped the Superman figure in his small hand. The only thing Henry wanted to do was play with that figure. 

“Henry?” Mrs. Zoden’s voice rang out, startling the unsuspecting boy. 

“What?”

“Were you paying attention to the lesson?”

He hated to lie, but now seemed like a good time to. “Yes, of course.”

“Then can you come up here and write a cursive “e” for me?”

_Oh no._ “O-okay,” Henry said, not an ounce of confidence in his voice. He slowly walked to the front of the room. For some reason, Henry never really cared about the watchful eyes of his classmates; he wasn’t frightened like most people were. 

He reached out and grabbed the blue whiteboard marker. He had absolutely had no idea how to write an “e” in cursive, he totally missed the lesson. 

As Henry brought his hand up to the board, he looked just left of him and saw some weird looking letter, but he noticed it was slanted. Might as well give it a try. His hand shook slightly as he drew a regular “e” but slanted it a bit. 

“Good job, Henry!” Mrs. Zoden congratulated him. There was something in her gaze, but Henry’s third grade brain didn’t know what it was. 

He went to go sit back in his seat, his face red from his teacher’s praise. Immediately, his brain clogged up with a man in red and blue. Hesitantly, he pushed those thoughts away. He actually wanted to pay attention; he wouldn’t let himself get lost again.

It only took seventeen minutes for Henry to lose focus. He imagined himself using heat vision to fight off the offending slanted letters that scrawled on the board. In his mind, the letters were ganging up on his poor defenseless “e”. The letter that had saved his life before, jumped up and tried to protect the “e” against the bad letters. The fantastic duo was shocked when the bad letters formed together to make a Lex Luthor that had thrown the protector away from the frightened little “e”. Luckily, his heat vision drove Lex and his band of letters away just in time.

Bodies obscuring his view of the board interrupted his heroic story. _Did they not know Superman just saved all of them?_

Henry stood up too. “Where are we going?” he whispered to his blonde classmate.

“We’re going to Mrs. Martha’s room, were you not paying attention?” she replied, narrowing her eyes.

“You know me,” Henry shrugged and followed the girl out of the room and into the adjoining classroom.

“Class, I would like you to meet Mrs. Zoden and her students!” Mrs. Martha exclaimed, once every student was in the small room.

“Hi,” the class said at relatively the same time. 

“I would like each of you to find a partner from the other class,” Mrs. Martha said, walking to the front of the room with Mrs. Zoden following right behind. 

Students gradually divided into pairs. Henry stood in the corner of the room; he didn’t know anybody in this class. It looked like everyone had paired off, meaning Henry would be alone; it wouldn’t be the first time. 

“Everyone who doesn’t have a partner, raise their hand,” one of the teachers said, surveying the room.

Henry’s hand rose. So did someone else’s.

“Henry it looks like Ben doesn’t have a partner. Why don’t you two pair up together,” Mrs. Zoden urged him toward the boy in the opposite corner of the class.

Henry picked his way through the crowd, heading toward the brown-haired boy. When he reached his side, he turned back to the front of the room, giving the boy a side-glance. 

“Introduce yourself and say something that interests you,” Mrs. Martha told the combined class.

The boy didn’t say anything, so Henry decided to go first. “I’m Henry and I really like Superman,” Henry said.

Ben’s face lit up. “You like superheroes?”

Henry nodded.

“Me too! I’m Ben and I really like Batman!” Ben seemed to radiate with joy. Ben kept his mouth open, as if thinking if he should say something or not. “Can we be friends? I don’t know anybody else that likes superheroes.”

“Of course!” Henry smiled. Finally, he found someone that actually understood him. It’s about time he made a friend. Henry did have a lot of acquaintances, but no close friends.

Henry and Ben would never know what the rest of the class time in Mrs. Martha’s room was supposed to be about, as they were too busy talking about superheroes.

As his class was leaving, Henry turned back to Ben. “Do you want to eat lunch together?”

“Okay! I’ll meet you at the long table toward the exit sign.”

Henry smiled and gave a thumb up in response.

Gladly, the rest of the day went by quick and it was finally time for lunch. He and Ben ate together, and then traveled outside, side by side, when it was time for recess.

They sat in the shade of one of the few trees that was far enough away from all the other students that he couldn’t hear their playful yelps.

“I want to be Superman,” Henry stated almost as soon as they sat down.

“I want to be Batman. If only that was possible,” Ben sighed.

“If you couldn’t be Batman, who else would you want to be?”

“Nobody else really. How about you?”

“James Bond. I saw my dad watching one of those movies and I was hooked.”

“Your parents let you watch that?” Ben’s eyes widened almost comically.

“Well, not exactly. I may have sat on the stairs, observing the movie from far away,” Henry laughed, which made Ben laugh with him.

“Well, good luck, I hope you can become superman, or James Bond, in the future,” Ben said as his laughter died down.

“You too, Mr. Wayne,” Henry winked.

Ben laughed again.

It wasn’t even a week later, when the Ben came over to Henry’s house for a sleepover.

“Call for me if you boys need anything else, I’ll just be upstairs,” Henry’s mom smiled.

The boys waved goodbye as she left the living room. She had left them both with a piece of pizza, a can of soda, and a Superman movie in the DVD player.

“Your mom’s great!” Ben exclaimed.

Henry shrugged, but agreed nonetheless.

Toward the end of the movie, Ben had scooted closer to Henry and laid his head on his shoulder. Henry guessed he was sleeping. For some reason, Henry felt more relaxed then he ever remembered being before.

Henry wasn’t a man of patience, but he took his time moving Ben’s head from his shoulder and onto a random pillow on the ground. It was Henry’s pillow and he hadn’t noticed until Ben was already on it. 

Henry lay near the sleeping boy, being careful to not be too close but not too far. Suddenly, Ben made a sound and his face grew a sour look. Henry was worried. Ben’s hand shot out and grabbed onto the nearest thing, which happened to be Henry’s arm. Ben wrapped his little arms around the even smaller arm and brought it close to his chest. 

Henry was trapped. His head was off his, well Ben’s, pillow from the force of which Ben had tugged him, and lay almost touching Ben’s forehead. Henry could feel Ben’s breath on his neck, which, strangely, didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. Third grade Henry loved the warmth and pushed himself even closer, but being extremely careful as not to wake the sleeping boy.

Henry wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he definitely slept very well.

He woke up to a voice in his ear. “Mr. Kent, it’s time to wake up,” Ben whispered.

Henry let out a sleepy laugh and lightly pushed himself away from Ben so he could sit up without hitting the other boy.

“Mr. Wayne, what would you like for breakfast?” Henry stood up quickly. “No wait! Let me redo that,” he cleared throat. “What would you like for breakfast, Master Bruce,” Henry topped it off with a low bow.

“Well, Alfred, what do you have in the kitchen?” Ben chuckled.

“Let’s have a look,” Henry stuck out his hand and helped Ben stand up.

Together they walked into the kitchen where Henry’s mom was already closing the fridge. “How do pancakes sound?” she asked.

“Awesome!” Ben exclaimed.

“Great!” Henry said at the same time.

Henry’s mom snickered at their reaction. “I’ll tell you when they are done, how about you boys go play.”

“Okay!” Henry led Ben back out into the living room. “Want to see my Superman collection?”

Ben’s smile was as close to the size of the Joker’s as he could possibly get. 

 

He and Ben had always been very close. He had always thought that everyone was that close to their best friend as they were to each other.

In high school, they started getting weird looks when they would stand too close to each other for a second too long. He and Ben would just scoot closer to each other and smirk.

When they would stay at each other’s house, they were more separated then they were when they were children, yet they would both still have their hand stretched out and latched onto the others. _That’s what normal friends do too, right?_

One day, Henry and Ben decided to wear a superhero shirt to school on the same day and surprise each other with their superhero choice. Henry figured that Ben would wear a Batman shirt and Ben presumed Henry would wear a Superman shirt. 

They completely dumbfounded each other when Henry showed up with a Batman shirt and Ben showed up with a Superman shirt. Both of their mouths hung open in utter shock.

“Man, I love you. You know me so well,” Ben snorted.

Henry’s heart had stopped. He knew that they were just joking around, but with that in mind, why did it affect him so much? Why did everything they do together, affect him so much? Why did _Ben_ affect him so much? He put those thoughts in the back crevice of his mind. Instead, he laughed along. 

After high school ended, he and Ben hung out every once and a while. But they seemed to grow apart day by day.

 

All communication stopped when Henry moved to California. He decided he wanted to try his hand at acting. 

He did some movies and then he heard that they were auditioning for the role of Superman in the movie, _Man of Steel_. He auditioned right away and actually got the role. _If only Ben was here to celebrate._

A couple years later, Zack had called him and asked if he wanted to be _Superman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice_ , he obviously said yes.

The moment he met the rest of the cast, he could’ve sat on the ground and cried. There stood Ben. Ben turned his head, ran to Henry, and swept him into a hug. 

“I saw you in _Man of Steel_. You were absolutely fantastic,” Ben looked so happy he could cry.

“Thanks, Ben, I really appreciate it," Henry grinned. "What’s your role?”

“Batman.” Ben’s smile was truly blinding.

“You’re kidding! I’m so proud of you Ben, I could just kiss you!” Henry said before his brain registered what he said. When his brain processed it, his eyes grew wide. “I-I mean, I’m really proud of you Ben.”

“Then do it,” Ben whispered.

“What?”

“Kiss me, Henry. Right here. Right in front of everyone.”

If he had told himself twenty years ago that he would be Superman and finally be kissing his best friend, his younger self would’ve laughed in his face and told him to stop dreaming.


End file.
